Текст книги "Face of Death"

Автор книги: Kelly Hashway

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter 13

Heat prickled against my skin as I led the soul past Tony and Ethan and into the depths of Tartarus. He cowered behind me, not wanting to follow but unable to stop his legs from moving. I knew the feeling. Hades had done the same thing to me on several occasions.

“Please, don’t make me go. I’m sorry. For everything. Please.” He grabbed my hand, squeezing it with every sobbing heave of his body.

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. Once the judges make their decision, I have to follow their judgment. They said to bring you here. I’m powerless to change your fate.” Even as the words left my mouth, they felt foreign. I was going through the motions down here. The only reason I was aware of what my body and Ophi soul were doing in the underworld was because my human soul was asleep. When I tuned out one soul, the other took over.

The man, Henry Something-or-Other, continued to wail. Knowing what awaited him in Tartarus, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the guy, even if he had done terrible things in his life. I wasn’t really one to judge.

“Oh, good. Another one.” Abby smirked. “Who knew there were so many damned sinners in the world?”

“You’re one to talk. Your punishment didn’t end too long ago.”

Her eyes burned into mine. “And it will be time for yours again soon.”

I turned away, not wanting to see Henry’s horror or the look of pleasure on Abby’s face, and headed back to the palace. As I passed the Fields of Asphodel, I felt a pull in that direction.

“Jodi.”

Alex. I fought the urge to run into his arms. I had to be careful in case Hades was watching us. We never really knew where he was. Ever since we’d made the deal with him, we’d seen him less and less. It was strange, but the second I tuned in to my Ophi soul, I had access to all my memories in the underworld. I just had to be careful not to access them all at once. Between the torture and bringing souls to their own personal forms of Hell, it got overwhelming really quickly.

I walked slowly to Alex, looking around for signs of Hades. “Hey.”

“You came.” He looked deep into my eyes. “It’s you. How? Did you release your soul already?”

“No. My human soul is sleeping, and that brought my focus back here. It’s happened before, though. When we were in Tartarus. The pain yanked my focus back to my body.” Just in time to see my dad. That image was hard to get past.

“The double vision thing is tough, huh? Tony said it would be, but I’ve been hoping he was wrong.” He reached for my hand, lacing my fingers through his. God, I missed him.

“Is it okay to be holding hands like this? I mean, will Hades—”

“He’s been leaving the underworld a lot. No clue where he’s going, but we end up unsupervised. He thinks we’re all still under his control, but when he’s gone we can do whatever we want. Our powers are too strong for him to keep a hold on.”

“He doesn’t have a clue, does he?”

“Not at all. Something’s going on. He’s too busy to notice us.”

“That can’t be good. What could he be looking for?” The thought hit me like a speeding Mack truck. “Do you think he knows what I’ve done?” I clutched Alex’s hand, squeezing it so hard he looked down at it.

“Easy, Jodi. I don’t think he suspects anything, but you have been different since you left.”

“Different how?”

“Every time you go by the Fields, I call out to you, but this is the first time you’ve responded.”

I’d been ignoring him. “I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head, dismissing it. “You’re not all here. I get it.” He got quiet for a moment, which could only mean he was thinking of how to ask about Matt.

“Things aren’t going so well for the human me, either. Matt had a tough time adjusting at first, but after I showed him his reflection—Brian’s reflection—he was pretty much up for believing anything I said. I left out some things, though. I didn’t want to overload him.”

Alex’s head jerked up. “What kind of things?”

“The whole ‘I brought him back wrong’ thing. You know, the bunny-eating incident.”

“Anything else?”

“He knows about us. I told him.”

He nodded and started breathing normally again. “Good. If he does anything, tries anything—”

“Matt’s not like that. He knows how I feel about you.” I didn’t want to tell him about the kiss—kisses. Or that Matt had said he still loved me. It wasn’t the right time to tell him. I didn’t know how much time I had left before I woke up and my focus shifted back to my human soul.

“I don’t want to, but I should go. I only have a couple hours to rest before the bus comes to take Matt and me back to the school.”

“He agreed to go with you?”

“Yeah. He needs to get used to his new body and decide how he’s going to start his life over.”

“Wait, you’re not ever going to release his soul? I thought this was just a temporary thing, to give him a break from his afterlife.”

“No. He deserves to live, Alex. I can’t let him die again.”

“Jodi, he’s a zombie. Maybe you gave him permission to act like himself, but he’s still not alive. He’s been dead too long.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but Matt seemed so different. He wasn’t like the other souls I’d brought back. He seemed so alive.

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. There’s still time for me to decide what to do about him.”

“Please think about this…”

Alex’s image faded as Matt gently shook my shoulder. “The bus is here.”

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. Alex was gone. I was with my human soul again. With Matt. I hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye or tell Alex I loved him.

“You okay?” Matt rubbed my arm, concern all over his face.

“Bad dream.” This going back and forth between souls was too much for me to handle. Matt wouldn’t be able to understand.

“I know what you mean. My dream was really strange.”

We got on the bus and found seats in the back, away from everyone else. Not many people were on the bus this early in the morning.

“What was it about?” I kept my voice barely above a whisper in case Matt’s dream had been of the underworld, too.

“You. Me. That Alex guy and some other people I don’t know. We were in a cemetery, and this guy was telling you to choose your dad and me. He must have meant over Alex. At first, I thought the dream was just my mind trying to process you being with Alex now, but then something weird happened. The guy said you weren’t allowed to have any kids. Strange, right?”

Not strange. Matt’s dream was exactly what had happened in the cemetery the night Hades brought him back to life.

“Then you and I talked, but you were crying, so I wiped a tear from your cheek. I don’t remember anything else, so that must be when I woke up.”

No, that was when he’d died…again. My mouth couldn’t form words. I couldn’t tell him the truth, could I? How would he react to knowing I’d killed him again? That he’d once been in Heaven, and because of me Hades had sentenced him to eternity in the Fields of Asphodel, where he barely knew his own name?

“Matt, how much about me do you really want to know?” Letting him decide for himself was the only fair thing to do.

“What do you mean? You told me about what you can do.” He looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, even though we hadn’t said anything too bizarre. Yet.

“I’ve done a lot of bad things, not all on purpose.” I played with the hem of my shirt. “There’s more to tell you about us. You and me.”

He straightened up in the seat and stared at me. “Go on.”

“Your dream, it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. That really did happen.” He shook his head, but I continued. “Matt, when you kissed me in my backyard and you died, I brought you back to life. Only, I did it wrong and Alex had to…” I couldn’t say it. He’d hate Alex even more.

“What did he do to me?” His fists were clenched at his sides.

“He had to release your soul, only he wasn’t powerful enough to do it yet so he poisoned you with his blood. You died again.”

“He killed me?” His voice was way too loud, and a few people turned around to look at us.

We both slumped down in the seats, hiding from view.

“He had to. You weren’t you anymore. It was your body, but your soul didn’t fully return. You were a zombie. I watched you rip apart a bunny.”

His hands flew to his face, covering his eyes. “Please, tell me you’re making this up. I’ve handled a lot since we came back. I’ve believed a bunch of crazy stuff, but this is too much.”

“I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop?”

He lowered his hands. “No. Keep going. How did I end up in the cemetery with you?”

“It was months later. Hades had this plan to get me to wipe out the Ophi line, but I refused. He raised you—only this time, you weren’t a zombie. You were you. Human. Alive. When you touched my tear you died again.” I looked away, unable to face him after such a huge confession.

He didn’t say anything for a long time. We rode along, watching the scenery go by. Part of me felt like an idiot for unloading all that on him. Maybe ignorance really was bliss. But didn’t he have a right to know what had happened to him, no matter how bad it was?

The bus pulled up to a stop, and a bunch of people got out. Matt and I had at least another two stops before we’d be close enough to walk to the school. I wondered how long he’d keep up the silent treatment. Once the bus was back on the road, I turned to look at Matt.

“Do you hate me?”

He sighed and shifted in the seat so he was facing me. “I could never hate you.”

“Then why the silent treatment? I figured you’d yell or ask more questions, but you didn’t do or say anything.”

He brushed a strand of blonde hair out of my face. “Have I mentioned how much I miss your hair?”

Me too. In the right lighting, my crazy waves almost looked Medusa-like. In a non-creepy-snake kind of way. Without my powers or my hair, I wasn’t feeling connected to Medusa at all, and she was the one I had to talk to if I was going to save the Ophi.

“Did I lose you?”

“Sorry, just thinking.”

“I figured that.” He fidgeted with his hands, like he didn’t know what to do with them. “Look, there’s something I need to ask. I’m not trying to be the guy who steals someone else’s girlfriend—”

“I know you’re not like that.” Was I saying this to convince him not to go there? Or did I really know this was true?

“I just need to know. If I hadn’t touched your tears, if I hadn’t died again that night in the cemetery, what would you have chosen?”

He meant who would I have chosen. Instinctively, I reached for his hand, but I stopped before our fingers grazed each other. I tucked my hands under my legs to keep from touching Matt. “You have to understand that there is no way for us to be together. My powers have killed you more than once. I won’t put you in danger again.”

“You aren’t a danger to me now. Can’t we stay like this?”

Stay like this? Forever? “I don’t know if that’s even possible. My soul is split. I didn’t want to mention this, but my dream last night wasn’t a dream, either. While I was sleeping, my focus slipped back to the underworld where my body and Ophi soul were delivering someone to Tartarus. I saw Alex. He said I’ve been kind of out of it, not responding to him when he calls to me.”

I couldn’t help noticing the way Matt’s eyes lit up at that.

“Maybe you’re becoming fully human again. Maybe your Ophi soul is fading away. Can it do that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I’m stronger as an Ophi. I have a lot of power. Here,” I released my hands from under my legs and motioned to the bus, “I’m defenseless.”

“And you don’t want to give up the power you had.”

I thought about how some Ophi had turned evil as a result of having too much power or even just craving too much power. It had happened to Victoria, Troy, Abby, and Chase, just to name a few. I didn’t want it to happen to me, too.

“I don’t, but to be honest, the power scares me a little, too.”

“Is this life really so bad? Being human? Being with me?”

This time he took my hands in his. My heart ached, knowing what he was really asking. He wanted me to take Hades up on his offer that night in the cemetery. He wanted me to choose him.

“Hades could make it so we could be together. You’d be human. I bet he’d love that idea.”

Maybe he would, but I’d have to give up Alex. I’d have to let Hades keep the souls of my friends forever. “Matt, you don’t understand what that would mean. I’d be sacrificing every Ophi for my own happiness.”

“So, you admit you’d be happy with me?” Hope filled his eyes.

“I was happy with you before all this happened, but a lot has changed. I love Alex.”

“You said you thought you were falling in love with me. I already love you, Jodi. We’d be perfect together. I think you know that.”

Maybe I did. Suddenly, this all felt like a huge test. A one-question multiple-choice test worth all the points in the world.

Who would I rather be?

A. Ophi and be with Alex

or

B. Human and be with Matt.

Chapter 14

Matt stared at me while I struggled to make sense of what was happening. I was literally two different people right now, and they both wanted different things. I couldn’t please both. Ultimately, I’d have to make a choice, one that would hurt more than just one half of my soul.

“Am I wrong?” Matt said, breaking me from my internal debate.

I slowly pulled my hands from his. “It’s just not that simple. Believe me, I wish I could separate both halves of me and choose you and Alex. But this is about more than which guy I want to be with.”

Matt nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I said I wouldn’t push you, and here I am putting pressure on you. I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“Do you ever wish you’d chosen Melodie instead?” The question came out of nowhere, but Melodie had been in love with Matt. I’d found that out right before I’d killed him.

“Melodie? She’s one of my best friends. I don’t think of her like that.”

“I was one of your best friends, too.”

He smiled and waved off my comment. “Nah, I was only pretending to be your friend because I wanted to date you.”

“That’s not you. You’re too good a guy to do something so deceitful.”

“Ouch, the nice guy speech. That hurts.”

“I love that you’re the nice guy. It’s actually what attracted me to you in the first place.”

“Really?” He wagged his eyebrows at me. “It wasn’t my tall, dark, and handsome physique?”

I laughed.

“What? It’s not that funny.” He looked mildly hurt.

“No, it’s not that. It’s…well, do I need to show you a mirror? You’re not tall or dark anymore, and as for handsome, Brian had nothing on you.” Crap! I’d just flirted again.

“Good to know.” He sat back in the seat, looking pleased with himself.

Just great. How was I going to survive this trip if I couldn’t stop flirting with him? It wasn’t fair to either one of us—or to Alex, for that matter.

After the next stop, Matt dozed off for a bit. I felt guilty for being happy about that, but I needed a break from everything. Mostly from the guilt of killing the guy who loved me and then bringing him back to life only to break his heart.

The brakes squeaked as we approached our stop. I nudged Matt. “We’re here.”

He looked around, kind of dazed before standing up and motioning for me to go first. “After you.”

“Thanks.” I tried my best not to come in too much contact with Matt as I squeezed between him and the seat on my way to the aisle. I walked to the front of the bus, being careful not to look closely at anyone. Not that anyone would recognize me, but I wouldn’t exactly be able to keep the horrified look off my face if I did see anyone from my old life.

“Mel?” Matt said behind me.

No! No, no, no. I whipped my head up in time to see Matt gawking at Melodie boarding the bus. Where was her new car? Why on earth was she taking the bus?

I turned to Matt and grabbed his hand. “We better hurry or we’ll be late.” I pulled him past Melodie as if we’d never seen her before.

“Wait up.” Matt was tugging my arm, but I kept going. After the bus doors closed, I let go of him. “What the hell, Jodi?”

“Don’t call me that. It’s too risky.”

“Why? We don’t look like ourselves.”

“It doesn’t matter. A guy and a girl with the same names as two kids who used to live here? People will assume we’re together because we’re traveling together. There are too many connections to our old lives. Melodie is another one. You can’t talk to people we knew. You might slip up and say something that will let them know who you really are.”

Matt smiled. “No one is going to believe this. We could flat-out tell people the truth, and they’d laugh in our faces.”

“Let’s not test that theory, okay?” Why wasn’t he getting how serious this was?

“So you’re not the least bit curious about what your mom’s up to? How she’s doing?”

Mom. Of course I’d give anything to see her again. But I couldn’t. Could I?

Matt took me by the shoulders and peered into my eyes. “Come on. What’s the harm in checking in on our old lives? Making sure the people we left behind are okay?”

“What if they’re not?” My eyes burned with the threat of tears. “I couldn’t handle it if my mom wasn’t okay. I wouldn’t be able to leave.”

“I get it.” He sighed and let go of me. “But I want to see my parents and my sister. If I’m really getting another shot at life, then I need to know they’re all okay.”

I started to protest, but he gently pressed a finger to my lips. “If they’re not, then I’ll find a way to make it okay.” I could see the wheels turning in his mind. “I could even be, like, an exchange student or something. I could live in my own home again and be part of the family.”

“Matt.” He was getting his hopes up. Things never worked out that nicely.

“I know it’s a long shot, but what if it could happen? If there’s any chance, I want to try.”

How could I deny him this after everything I’d done to him? “Okay, we’ll go check on them, but I can’t stay long. I have to get to the school. The others are counting on me.”

He smiled so wide I could see all the money Brian’s parents must have spent on dental work. “Let’s call a cab.”

“And what? Show up on their doorstep?” That would never work.

He thought for a moment. “I could show up at Amber’s art studio. She goes every day after school.”

“We don’t even know what day it is. Time moves differently in the underworld. We don’t know how much time has passed.” It was April when Hades took me and the other Ophi, but the air was warm now. I was guessing it was late May or early June. Maybe even later, judging by how hot I was in this hoodie.

“We have to start somewhere.” Matt walked to the traffic light and headed toward the grocery store. “Maybe they have a phone we can use.” Of course, we didn’t have any money left to call a cab or pay for one.

“Who are you going to call?”

“Amber’s cell.”

“What? Are you crazy? You can’t even think about telling her who you really are.”

“I won’t. I’ll tell her I’m new at school and one of her friends gave me her number.”

“And what are you going to do when your own sister thinks you’re hitting on her?”

Matt’s face twisted in disgust. “Oh, gross.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what she’s going to think. Trust me.”

He kicked a rock on the ground, looking defeated. “So then, what do we do?”

“Come on.” I tugged his arm, pulling him inside the grocery store. I grabbed a newspaper from the stand by the door. “Yes!” A few people turned and stared at me. “Sorry.” I turned away from them, focusing on Matt. “It’s Friday. Serpentarius is open to humans.” I could go talk to Mason, and Matt could look for Amber or some other kids from school who might be able to tell him about his family.

“To humans?”

“It’s an Ophi safe house, kind of like the school I need to get back to. Only the owners open the club to humans every Friday night. They even have humans on staff, so there aren’t any slip-ups.”

“Slip-ups?”

I widened my eyes, waiting for him to get the meaning behind my words.

“Oh.” His forehead creased with worry lines. “Do you think my cousin knows about the Ophi?”

Matt had no idea Jared was an Ophi. Just great, another thing I’d have to break to him. “Matt, your cousin isn’t really your cousin by blood, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Because Jared is an Ophi. He’s with the others in the underworld.”

He looked like he’d been sucker-punched. “Wow.”

“He was one of the few Ophi who worked when humans were allowed in the club. He never used his powers, and he was really careful. That’s why he could be around you and your family without hurting any of you.”

“This is so crazy. All my life I had no idea Ophi existed, and now I find out I know two of them, my cousin and my girlfriend.” He lowered his eyes. “Though I guess he’s not technically my cousin, and you’re not my girlfriend anymore.”

The pain on his face made me think I deserved the torture my Ophi soul was being put through in Tartarus. I didn’t have the strength to address the issue of Matt and me, so I focused on Jared. “He’s a great guy. The longer I stay here, the guiltier I feel.”

“Jodi, look—”

“No.” I returned the paper to the shelf and walked back outside, nearly getting run over by an old lady pushing a shopping cart. “I promised I’d help you get settled. Besides, if we go to Serpentarius, you could try to get info about your parents while I talk to Mason and figure out how to break the others out of the underworld. It’s a win-win.”

“Great, except it’s morning. The club won’t open for hours.”

True. I could go back to the school in the meantime and talk to Medusa. Would I be able to touch the statue in my human form? Medusa might not recognize me in Liz’s body. Panic rushed through me. I needed to talk to Mason before I tried to talk to Medusa. He might know something, like how I could connect to the statue without being fried in the process.

“Want to check out the school?” I didn’t know where else to go, only that I wanted to avoid seeing my mom. It would be too hard to leave her again.

Matt looked away, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.

I tugged on his sleeve. “Let’s go.”

He tilted his head in surprise. “Really? Just like that? You’re not going to warn me about how dangerous this could be for me? How it might screw me up forever if things aren’t the way I want them to be?”

“If you say you can handle it, and it’s something you need to do, then I trust you. But…” I waited for him to stop smiling and made sure he was listening. “We have to make a stop first.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see. The question is, how are we going to get there?”

“Steal a car?” Matt laughed, but when he saw I didn’t, he stopped. “No way. Who are you, and what have you done with Jodi Marshall?”

“Shh!” I pushed him away from the door and the people walking out of the store. “No one can hear you call me that.”

“Sorry.” He looked down at me. I was pressed up against him in an alcove next to the cart return. I could feel his heart race as we huddled together. I cleared my throat and backed away.

“Okay. We just have to remember to be more careful. That’s all.” Yeah, more careful not to get that close again. I said Alex’s name over and over in my mind.

“Right, but are you serious about the car thing?”

“What choice do we have?” I scanned the parking lot, looking for a clunker, something I wouldn’t feel bad about taking. “There.” I pointed to a beat-up sedan that looked older than me.

“Are you kidding? The person driving that thing obviously can’t afford a new car. If he could, he wouldn’t be caught dead in that.” Matt looked over the cars. “That one.” I heard the smile in his voice as I followed his gaze.

“No way. Matt, that’s a BMW.”

“Exactly. That guy’s got money.”

“Unless he blew it all on an expensive car during a midlife crisis.” He shrugged. “Might teach him a lesson to have it stolen.”

It was my turn to stare at him in disbelief. “You’ve changed since…” I didn’t want say “since coming back from the dead.”

“Desperate times, I guess. So, what do you say?”

“Do you know how to hotwire a car?”

“If I said yes, would you judge me for it?”

Was there another side to Matt? A reason why he ended up in the Fields of Asphodel instead of the Elysian Fields, where all the good souls went?

“Let’s get this over with.” The memory of stealing Melodie’s car was all too present in my head. This wasn’t as bad. I didn’t know this person, and I hoped Matt was right about this guy having a lot of money.

We crouched down between the rows of cars, staying out of view. Matt tried the door. Locked. Of course. No alarm, though. That was surprising.

“How are we going to get in?” He looked at me as if I had the answer.

I didn’t have anything to pick the lock. Could you even pick a lock on a car? There was only one thing I could think of.

“Any chance there is an alarm on this but that we didn’t trip it?”

“Sure. All we did was try the door. That’s not enough to set off an alarm.” He studied my face like he was trying to read my thoughts. “But why would you want to set off the alarm?”

“If we trip the alarm, one of the store employees will announce that the car’s alarm is going off. Then the owner will come out to reset it. When he unlocks the doors, we’ll jump in.”

“Please, tell me you’re kidding.”

“Not even a little bit.”

Matt threw his head back and stared at the clouds. “I really am starting to think we’re completely different people.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to do this?”

“No.” He looked at me again. “It means I do.”

Matt motioned for me to go around to the other side of the car. We couldn’t be sure the owner wouldn’t come inspect the car when the alarm sounded. If he did, we’d have to move fast.

Matt started tugging on the door handles and bumping the car with his body. The alarm blared in my ears. I peered through the window, watching the grocery store doors for someone coming out with keys in their hands to disable the alarm. It felt like an eternity before the doors opened. A man in his late forties with a really bad dye job—I must have been right about the midlife crisis—came out. He stood on his toes, trying to see the car over the others in the lot.

“Get ready,” Matt said in a loud whisper.

The man was about four cars away when he unlocked the doors and shut off the alarm.

“Now!” I pulled open the door and threw myself into the passenger seat. Matt was inside and fumbling under the steering wheel quicker than I could put on my seatbelt.

“Hey!” the guy yelled as he saw me through the windshield.

“Matt, hurry up! He sees us.” The guy had keys. No way would we be able to keep him out of the car.

He was only one car away now. I undid my seatbelt, getting ready to run. I couldn’t get arrested. It would ruin everything.

“Matt!”